N E W T H E O L O G Y R E V I E W • M AY 2 0 0 2
Who are the poor in the
richest of nations?
Robert J. Vitillo
One of the problems American Catholics and their fellow citizens have
is a lack of contact with and knowledge of poverty. This essay gives some
background on the state of the poor and examines a pressing question
before our nation, the reform of welfare policy.
A
s he has done so often during his pontificate, Pope John Paul II placed special emphasis on the Church’s social mission when he closed the Great
Jubilee Year 2000 and opened the Third Christian Millennium. Challenging the
Church to center its attention on the plight of those living in poverty, he said:
Our world is entering the new millennium burdened by the contradictions of an
economic, cultural, and technological progress which offers immense possibilities to a fortunate few, while leaving millions of others not only on the margins
of progress but in living conditions far below the minimum demanded by
human dignity. How can it be that even today there are still people dying of
hunger? Condemned to illiteracy? Lacking the most basic medical care? Without
a roof over their heads? (John Paul II, 2001, n. 50).
Robert J. Vitillo, a priest of the Diocese of Paterson, N.J., holds advanced degrees in
social work from Rutgers University. In 1997, Fr. Vitillo was appointed executive director
of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development at the United States Catholic Conference. The campaign was founded in 1970 by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops;
it is the largest private funding source for organizations that empower the poor and work
to eliminate poverty and injustice in the United States.
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Upon first reading these words of the Pope, one might be tempted to think
that his concern lies only with the plight of the poor people living in developing
countries of this world. It is indeed true that their numbers are staggering and
their life situations are most tragic. The United Nations 2001 Human Development Report chronicles these facts in compelling fashion.
Of the 4.6 billion people living in developing countries,
• 1.2 billion live on less than $1.00 a day and 2.8 billion on less than $2.00 a day;
• 2.4 billion have no access to basic sanitation;
• 968 million have no access to decent water sources;
• 854 million are illiterate adults;
• 325 million are children out of school at the primary and secondary levels;
• 163 million are underweight children under five years of age;
• 11 million are children dying annually from preventable causes.
Concern for the poor in the United States, however, is equally appropriate and
urgently needed. Until the tragedies experienced on September 11, 2001, many
people in this country believed that its wealth, power, and security could never
be threatened. It is a fact that the United States enjoys twice as much wealth as
the next wealthiest country, Japan, and is wealthier than nine-tenths of the
world’s countries combined (Sullins). It is also true that, during the past twentyfive years, the United States saw the longest and largest continuous economic
growth in its history. Since 1975, the U.S. Gross National product has quintupled.
In 1975, with 5.2 percent of the world’s population, the United States produced
approximately 12 percent of the world’s income and enjoyed approximately
one-quarter of the globe’s wealth. Data collected in 1999 indicated that, with 4.1
percent of the world’s population, the United States was “home” to 29 percent of
the world’s income and one-third of the world’s wealth (Sullins).
The prosperity in this country, however, is concentrated among increasingly
smaller numbers of people. During the unprecedented economic boom of the late
1980s and the 1990s, for example, 47 percent of the total real income gain found
its way into the pockets of the top one percent of income recipients. Forty-two
percent of the income gain was enjoyed by 19 percent of the next highest income
earners, and only 12 percent accrued to the bottom 80 percent of income earners
(Stille).
This gap manifests itself even more dramatically when one examines wealth
rather than annual income. During the 1980s, in fact, the top 1 percent of wealthholders in the United States realized a staggering 62 percent of the gain in wealth,
whereas the bottom 80 percent reaped only 1 percent of the gain (Wolff).
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R O B E R T J. V I T I L I O
Poverty Today
A
s a result of these and many other economic and social trends, some 31.1
million people in the United States are forced to live in poverty. This statistic was reported in October 2001. The media greeted this information as a sign of
success for current public policy priorities, since it compared significantly to the
lowest poverty rate reported in this country—that of 11.1 percent in 1973 (U.S.
Census Bureau).
In all honesty, this writer finds little cause for celebration in the sorry fact that
the United States is “home” to so much poverty. If all poor people in the U.S.A.
were to populate a single state, it would be the
second largest—almost as big as California. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that more
than twelve million children, or one out of every
six children in the United States, lives in poverty.
Poverty in the
The child poverty rate in this country is higher
than most industrialized nations, including
United States has
Germany, Italy, France, Canada, the United
Kingdom, and Japan (UNICEF).
strong racial and
Poverty in the United States has strong racial
and gender biases. According to the national
gender biases.
census data, 22.1 percent of African-Americans
and 21.2 percent of Latinos were living in poverty
during the year 2000 (U.S. Census Bureau). When
their numbers in the general population are
taken into account, these racial and ethnic groups are grossly over-represented
among those who are poor. In 1999, one in every two children living in a femaleheaded household and under six years of age was poor. Once again AfricanAmerican and Latino children suffered disproportionately, with nearly one-third
of those in the above-mentioned categories—living in a female-headed household and under six years of age—growing up poor (Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities).
Defining the Poor
A
t this point, it might be helpful to clarify who “qualifies” to be considered
poor in the United States. Government analysts at the Social Security
Administration first calculated a poverty threshold in 1961 when they estimated
the amount at which a person or family has enough money for minimal nutritional subsistence and basic living costs. They started with the least expensive
plan for nutritional subsistence—called the “Economy Food Plan” and developed
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by the Department of Agriculture—and then multiplied that figure by three to
allow for expenses other than food. The resulting amount then was multiplied by
the number of persons in a family in order to produce a sliding threshold of
poverty based on family size. In 2001 the poverty threshold for a family of four
was set at $17,650 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). During this
same year a national poll conducted by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) revealed the belief of most Americans that a family of four
needs an annual income of $35,000 in order to make ends meet (CCHD).
Another disturbing trend seen in recent years is that those who remain poor
have grown poorer. In other words, the average poor person fell farther below the
poverty line in 1999 than in any year since 1979, the first year for which these
data are available. In 1999, the average poor person fell $2,416 below the poverty line. In 1996,
this average was $2,122 and in 1993, it was
$2,104 (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).
These numbers and statistics could seem
During the 1990s,
quite abstract unless one portrays them in context with the real-life, everyday situations enpeople in the
countered by so many poor families: inadequate
and unsanitary living space, the inability to acUnited States
cess medical care quickly, insufficient or poorquality food for the children, and the inability to
witnessed a strident
provide children with good-quality education
and recreational opportunities enjoyed by “all
and divisive debate
the other kids.”
that centered on
During the 1990s, people in the United States
witnessed a strident and divisive debate that
the need for
centered on the need for “welfare reform.” The
opinions expressed, on all sides of the political
“welfare reform.”
camps were often punitive and discriminatory
in nature. Once again, the citizenry succumbed
to the psychological defense of “projection,” or
“blaming the victim” by accusing poor people
indiscriminately of being “cheats,” lazy, and perpetually seeking to be “on the
dole,” when the truth was that, as a nation, this country has invested very little
time, energy, or resources into discovering and resolving the structural problems
which lead to generational or cyclic poverty. In this debate, the lack of committed advocates for poor people and the systematic exclusion of such people from
the corridors of political power which decided their fate led former New York
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to lament that only the Catholic bishops and
Catholic Charities were at his side as he tried to preserve a basic safety net for
poor people in this country.
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R O B E R T J. V I T I L I O
In 1996 the “welfare reform” bill, The Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act, was signed into law by then-President Clinton.
This new law replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a block grant program with
lifetime five-year time limits and other restrictions. Funding for the TANF block
grant was authorized through September 30, 2002. In the next few months, the
country most likely will witness a resurgence of the debates around its treatment
of people living in poverty and thus could benefit from some deeper reflection
on the repercussions of “welfare reform” and foundational values which should
underlie any further policies or legislation developed in this area.
Examining the “Reform”
I
n 1995 the Catholic bishops of the United States articulated six criteria to be
considered during the national debate about welfare reform. They insisted that
all such policies should:
• Protect human life and dignity;
• Strengthen family life;
• Encourage and reward work;
• Preserve a safety net for the vulnerable;
• Build public/private partnerships to overcome poverty;
• Invest in human dignity (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
Let us now examine some of the results of the policies established in 1996
through the lens of these values just mentioned.
Family Cap
Despite the fact that the Bishops’ Conference, Catholic Charities, and many
members of Congress opposed this provision, the “family cap” was included as
an option for states to include in their welfare reform policies. This was aimed at
stopping poor women from having children by denying benefits to any child born
while the family receives welfare; the policy was implemented in twenty-three
states. The state of New Jersey implemented the family cap even before the 1996
law was enacted and has maintained this provision ever since. A state-initiated
study of its effect has indicated that the policy has increased abortion rates in
this state by fourteen percent and has resulted in the further impoverishment of
twenty-eight thousand children who were denied benefits under this regulation.
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Declines in Enrollment
In 1999 there were eight million TANF recipients in the country; this represented a decline of forty-four percent since 1994. Enrollment for Food Stamps also
declined by one-third between 1994 and 1999. A 1997 study indicated that twothirds of the families leaving the Food Stamp Program were, in fact, still eligible
for these benefits. Even enrollment for Medicaid benefits, which were de-linked
from TANF by the 1996 law, dropped significantly. One possible explanation for
these declines lies in the “welfare avoidance” policies that were put into place by
a number of county welfare departments. Welfare workers were known to place
signs on their office doors, “No need to apply here . . . go find a job!” and some
workers were sanctioned if they approved too many cases to receive benefits.
Jobs
The National Governors’ Association reported that fifty to sixty percent of
former welfare recipients found jobs. What often is not mentioned in such socalled “good” news is that most of these jobs pay between $5.50 and $7.00 per
hour; this may be higher than the minimum wage, but not enough to bring a
family out of poverty even if the wage-earner works fulltime.
Time Limits
The strong economy between 1996 and 2000 and the emphasis on work requirements for all those who previously benefited from public assistance helped to reduce the immediate impact of time limits for such beneficiaries. With the current
downturn in the economy, the situation of many needy families may worsen once
they have “graduated” beyond the five-year limit during which they are eligible to
receive temporary assistance. Some states, such as California and New York, have
indicated that they plan to reduce, but not eliminate, cash assistance for such families, but others, such as Massachusetts and Louisiana, already have enforced time
limits and respectively disqualified 3,500 and 4,200 families during the year 2000.
The Experience of the Poor
W
hat about the lived experience of families who have been affected by such
policies? In a study entitled, Welfare Reform: How Do We Define Success?,
which was undertaken by NETWORK: A Catholic Social Justice Lobby, some 893
people were interviewed during the year 2000 at soup kitchens, health clinics,
and other private emergency facilities. The major findings of this report included
the following:
• Large numbers of people continue to subsist on household incomes far below
the federal poverty level. Almost half (47 percent) of those surveyed reported
annual household incomes of less than $8,500 per year. Large numbers of these
were eligible for Medicaid or food stamps but did not receive such benefits.
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R O B E R T J. V I T I L I O
• Many people with incomes above federal poverty thresholds—referred to by
some as welfare reform “success” stories—still go hungry and suffer from a
lack of adequate health care and other necessities. More than three-fourths of
the respondents with earnings above the poverty guidelines said that they
needed to turn to soup kitchens and other private agencies for help and 59 percent reported unpaid medical bills.
The NETWORK report introduces its readers to some of the people who have
felt the impact of welfare reform on a first-hand basis:
• Maria is a Latina mother of three in Garden Cove, California; she moved to a
shelter to escape domestic violence. She previously received cash assistance but is now employed and earns almost $20,000 per year. She
reports, “I do receive food stamps. However,
I would not be able to get by on the amount of
Welfare workers
food that I can buy with food stamps alone.”
She wants to move from the shelter, but is
were known to place
painfully aware of the lack of affordable housing; she says, “I have bad credit because of
signs on their office
my husband . . . with my monthly income of
$1,600 and [since] the average rent is $1,000,
doors, “No need
finding housing is going to be the biggest obstacle.”
to apply here . . .
• Mary, a thirty-five-year-old mother of three,
go find a job!”
lives in Niagara Falls, New York. She cares for
her biological children, three stepchildren and
two non-related children, through the Child
Assistance Program (or CAP), that pays her
for babysitting. In addition to the income from the CAP program, she receives
cash assistance and food stamps and lives in subsidized housing. She is required to work additional hours beyond the babysitting, so she works parttime at the food pantry. Despite her two jobs and government assistance, she
barely gets by each month. Her caseworker comments that she is really taking
care of three families on one subsidy, and she is working two jobs.
A Catholic Perspective
I
n this writer’s view, both the scientific findings presented earlier, as well as the
personal stories just related, clearly indicate that the United States of America
has fallen far short of its goal to accomplish welfare reform through the legislation
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and policies enacted in 1996. The failure can be seen as even greater if one asks
whether the country has dealt effectively with the more generalized phenomenon
of domestic poverty. The criteria for welfare reform articulated by the U.S.
Catholic bishops hardly seem to have been given any notice during the “welfare
reform” process.
Thus it seems timely and urgent for Americans to turn their attention not just
to welfare but also to the underlying structures of poverty in America. If such
an undertaking were to be given serious consideration, invaluable resources
could be found in the wisdom of Catholic Social Teaching and in the lived experience of poor people who have empowered themselves to find solutions for
complex social problems which they encounter each and every day.
Think back for a moment to the haunting questions raised by our Holy Father
and cited earlier in this article. Pope John Paul II did not ask them in merely
rhetorical fashion. He offered clear guidelines on how to deal with the challenge
of poverty in our modern-day world:
. . . Christians must learn to make their act of faith in Christ by discerning his
voice in the cry for help that rises from this world of poverty. . . . Now is the
time for a new “creativity” in charity, not only by ensuring that help is effective
but also by “getting close” to those who suffer, so that the hand that helps is
seen not as a humiliating handout but as a sharing between brothers and sisters
(John Paul II, 2001, n. 50).
Thirty-one years ago, the Catholic bishops of the United States prophetically
invited Catholics in this country to embrace “a new ‘creativity’ in charity” by
“‘getting close’ to those who suffer” through their support and active engagement
in the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Attitudinal surveys
in the United States indicate that more and more people expect the poor to help
themselves. The fact is that self-help efforts among poor people have been a
mainstay of many local communities. One of the main goals of the Catholic
Campaign for Human Development is to support community-based organizations that are initiated and led by poor people themselves. During the last thirtyone years, with the generosity of the Catholic community in the USA, CCHD has
been able to fund more than four thousand anti-poverty projects valued at more
than $260,000,000; many of these projects represent inter-faith efforts.
The best way to convey the personal impact experienced by such empowerment activities is to present some of the people and organizations helped by
CCHD to help themselves:
• Bernice Speliotis is an empowered and active member of a CCHD-funded project, Massachusetts Senior Action Council. Bernice and other members of this
group, most of whom were living on fixed incomes, were overwhelmed by the
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R O B E R T J. V I T I L I O
high costs of prescription drugs needed to keep themselves alive. They successfully advocated in the Massachusetts State Legislature to obtain the Prescription Advantage program, which reimburses them for vital medications
and is funded by premiums charged on a sliding scale fee basis.
• A group of immigrant women in New Mexico—all of whom were oppressed
by abject poverty and illiteracy in their home countries and several of whom
were abused by their own husbands—decided to make some permanent and
positive changes in their own lives. Because of CCHD funds, they have been
able to start a thriving business called Southwest Creations of Albuquerque,
which manufactures attractive clothing and home furnishing decorations.
• A group of women, all of whom had a history of
using drugs and numerous incarcerations, are
committed to keeping young people from risking
a life of crime and endless poverty. As members
of the CCHD-funded project, Let’s Start, in St.
Louis, they hold regular support sessions on how
to readjust to life in the community as responsible citizens and produce dramatic presentations in schools and other community settings in
order to prevent drug use among young people.
• A group of children and adolescents, between
the ages of ten and fifteen years, insist that they
can reduce gun violence in the city of Milwaukee.
As members of MICAH’s Youth Council, they
prepare testimony for the city government and
for the state legislature in order to advocate for
strict gun control legislation which will enable
them to sleep more soundly each night and
walk more calmly to school each day.
[U]rgent for
Americans to turn
their attention
not just to welfare
but also to the
underlying structures
of poverty in
America.
Yet another CCHD-funded organization works even more directly on welfare
reform issues. The Center for Community Change has brought together a national coalition of one thousand grassroots organizations in forty states to form
the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support. In this coalition, poor
people themselves are asked to share their wisdom and experience on how best
to bring about a lasting solution to poverty in America. They have proposed the
following:
• Income support and education and training should be more widely available to
low-income families. TANF education and training benefits should be offered
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to parents who may have some earnings, so they can advance in the job
market. Time limits should be suspended for families who are “playing by the
rules” and climbing the ladder of opportunity.
• Families and the government should each be responsible. Options need to be
available to people who have limited work experience and when the economy
(generally, or in a specific community) does not offer job opportunities. Public
job programs should be established to ensure that work and training are available to parents with limited work experience, and to provide a safety net for
families when work is unavailable because of economic conditions.
• The well being of families matters most. Parents with sick, disabled, or very
young children, or infirm relatives, experience
competing demands that must be accommodated.
TANF rules should be structured to reduce or
eliminate work participation requirements and
suspend time limits for these parents (Center for
The well being
Community Change).
of families
It is a familiarity with organized groups of
matters most.
empowered poor people that nourishes the hope
of this author that some day soon this country
will be able to eliminate the situation of poverty
within its own borders and will then be able to
dedicate more of its resources to promote similar empowerment and integral
human development in the entire world.
Conclusion
T
he attacks that we endured on September 11, 2001, demonstrated in horrifying and tragic manner what happens when men and women so discredit the
sanctity of human life that they give themselves over to a “culture of death.” As
a nation, the people of the United States have shared the experience of vulnerability to injustice that already is too familiar to those living in poverty.
From their grief and lament, the people of the United States should commit
themselves more forcefully than ever before to the promotion of human dignity,
especially among those most beloved to our Lord Jesus Christ—the poor, the vulnerable, and the victims of injustice. Let us pray, as well, that through support of
and active engagement in community-based, self-help efforts to overturn the
crushing burden of poverty in our society, Catholics in this country will advance
on their pilgrimage of faith and hope in this world. For, as Pope John Paul II reminds us: “At the end of the life of every person and at the close of the history of
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humanity, the judgment of God will be based precisely on love, the practice of
justice, and assistance to the poor.”
References
Catholic Campaign for Human Development. http//www.povertyusa.org
Center for Community Change. From Caseload Reduction to Poverty Reduction: A Fresh
Vision for TANF Reauthorization. Washington, D.C.: National Campaign for Jobs and
Income Support, 2001.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Poverty Rate Hits Lowest Level since 1979 as
Unemployment Reaches a 30-year Low.” Press Release, Washington, D.C.: October 10,
2000.
John Paul II. “Novo Millennio Ineunte.” Origins 30 (1/18/2001) 489, 491–508.
NETWORK. Welfare Reform: How Do We Define Success? Washington, D.C: Network,
2001.
Stille, Alexander. “Grounded by an Income Gap: Inequality Just Keeps Growing in the
U.S.,” New York Times (December 15, 2001) A15–17.
Sullins, Paul. “Poverty in America 2000: Disparity and Prosperity,” A Social Analysis for
the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Washington, D.C., unpublished paper.
United Nations Development Program. 2001 Human Development Report. New York:
United Nations, 2001.
UNICEF. The State of the World’s Children. New York: United Nations, 2000.
U.S. Census Bureau. Poverty in the United States: 2000. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Poverty Threshold.” http://www.
aoa.dhhs.gov/network/2001povguidetable.html
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Welfare Reform.” http://www.usccb.org/
sdwp/national/welfare.html
Wolff, Edward N. “How the Pie is Sliced: America’s Growing Concentration of Wealth.”
The American Prospect 22 (1995).
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